Community learning: member's stories about their academic community of practice
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Date
2008Author
Lynch, Bernadette
McDonald, Jacquelin
Collins, Pauline
Hingst, Raymond D
Kimmins, Lindy
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Show full item recordAbstract
Communities of practice (CoPs) are generally endorsed in higher education, but there
are few examples of successful communities within the Australian higher education
context. This paper articulates the experiences of members of a Faculty community of
practice as they share their stories about collegial support, fellowship, inspiration,
problem-solving, essential administrative backing and cheese! The stories reflect the
response of a group of academics to the development of a community of practice around
learning and teaching within the business faculty of a small, regional Australian
university with a diverse student cohort of domestic and international on-campus and
external students. We argue that CoPs provide a number of key professional supports for
academic staff: real communication and ongoing dialogue across institutional barriers; a
sense of trust required to open up a safe place to share common challenges and enable
social learning; support and professional development for course leaders; and a model of
strategic thinking and strategic action in a changing institutional environment.